Chef to Chef: Competition takes stage at Taste of Athens

Posted: Thursday, March 15, 2007

At 6:30 p.m. Sunday, magic will happen in just under the space of an hour.

That's when two chefs will go onstage at the Classic Center, armed with a fully stocked pantry, learn the secret ingredient and have 45 minutes to create an entrée that will be judged on originality, taste and presentation.

Andrea Griffith, host of the television show "Georgia Life & Style," will emcee along with East West Bistro chef Lamar Thomas, and the "celebrity judges" are Banner-Herald Features Editor Courtney Alford-Pomeroy, Flagpole food writer Hillary Brown and Tom Maicon of Atlanta Cuisine Magazine.

It's "Iron Chef" with an Athens spin. For the second year in a row, the Red Clay Chef Competition will provide much of the drama at the 14th annual Taste of Athens, a culinary fundraiser benefiting Community Connection of Northeast Georgia, which has been offering information and referral services since 1983. This year, the Red Clay contenders are Homer Whitmire of DePalma's downtown and Bret Clark of Foundry Park Inn & Spa.

Taste of Athens, held from 6 to 9 p.m. Sunday, also showcases food and drinks for the sampling from over 50 area vendors. A silent auction will offer art and jewelry from local artists, a tasting and tour at Crane Creek Vineyard, a night at the Ritz-Carlton Lodge at Reynolds Plantation, a guitar signed by the members of R.E.M. and front row seats to an upcoming Widespread Panic show at the Classic Center. Also, a 32-inch widescreen LCD television set and a three-month membership at the Omni Club, complete with personal trainer, will be raffled off.

But even amid the vying for food and prizes, it's the Red Clay Chef Competition that may be the most tensely cutthroat event of the evening.

Or maybe not.

"I've met Homer," said Clark. "He's a great guy, real laid back. We're just having fun with this."

Bret Clark, 38, hails from Austin, Texas

Clark lives on Lake Oconee, where he moved four years ago to take an executive chef position at a country club that has since disbanded. He's been with the Foundry Park Inn & Spa a year and a half, but his relationship with food has been a lifelong affair.

"Ever since I was a kid, I was in the kitchen with my mother or doing things on my own," he said. "It's a passion."

Clark, who has been cooking professionally since 1991, studied at the University of Texas' now-defunct culinary program in Austin. And even though he's known for his expertise in Italian and French cooking, his roots make him a self-proclaimed "chili-head" and spice-lover.

"I'm a big, big, big southwestern Tex-Mex type," he said. "I'm also big into barbecues. Barbecue is an art, it really is."

He's cooked in culinary salons or competitions before, but he'd much rather "cook in the back of a house and wow them with a plate." Even though he prefers being behind the scenes, he said that being a Red Clay Chef is a win-win situation: he gets his name out in a new community, and he raises money for a worthy cause.

"I'm real excited about it," he said. "I'm a little nervous."

Homer Whitmire, 35, hails from Lexington, Ky.

Whitmire has lived in Athens and worked at DePalma's - where he is known for creating the daily specials, crab cakes, homemade dressings, chicken scaloppini and veal marsala - since 1999.

As Clark's affinity with food is influenced by his Texas roots, Whitmire's skills recall a life on the coast. He's well-versed in seafood especially; at 13, he was a dishwasher in a North Myrtle Beach, S.C., seafood restaurant before working his way up to cook. He attended culinary school at Johnson & Wales University, then located in Charleston, S.C., and later worked in Savannah. His parents, who live in Florence, S.C., bring him raw oysters which he enjoys cooking at home.

But his favorite thing to make when he's not at the restaurant is "macaroni and cheese - anything that's easy!" he says, laughing.

A few weeks before the competition, Whitmire would not say that he was nervous exactly, but he had started timing himself when cooking.

That should come in handy when he's got 45 minutes to cook on the fly in front of spectators and judges.